New pol target: Interlopers from across the lake

Lake Washington is becoming a demarcation line for identifying political devil figures, for both Republican Party conservatives and voices from Seattle’s liberal echo chamber.

Consider the broadsides sailing over the lake’s two floating bridges:

— “Progressive Bull’s-eye on East King County,” said a Wednesday “news update” from King County Republican Chairman Lori Sotelo. It warned that “Seattle interests have their sights on the Eastside.”

Ballmer (AP Photo)

— “Eastsiders for School Board incumbents,” headlined a recent article from PubliCola, the left-of-center Seattle political tout sheet. It warned that big donors, “many of them not even from Seattle,” are putting bucks into Seattle school board races. Leading the list: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The Sotelo broadside was set off by the progressive consumer group Fuse, which is mounting a 5 p.m. Wednesday protest outside the Bellevue office of developer (and longtime light rail foe) Kemper Freeman Jr.

Fuse is protesting last-minute hit mailers sent out against Bellevue City Council candidates John Stokes and Claudia Balducci. Freeman ($25,000), real estate developer Robert Wallace ($22,000) and developer George Rowley ($22,000) financed the mailers through a group called the Eastside Leadership Committee PAC.

In response, wrote Sotelo: “You see, Seattle interests have their sights on the Eastside and leading the pack are fat cat lobbyist Tim Ceis and Collin Jergens of the Progressive Institute FUSE.

“Ceis and Jergens want a Bellevue in the mold of Seattle and BIG TAXES to support their fat cat habits.”

Ceis is a former Seattle deputy mayor and former deputy King County Executive. He currently sits as one of five members on the Washington State Redistricting Commission.

Jergens is a decidedly skinny cat — he’s a mountaineer and kayaker — who was brought up on the Eastside.

“I have honestly never met Mr. Ceis and wouldn’t even recognize him,” Jergens said Wednesday. “We are not bringing anybody from Seattle. Our (Freeman) demonstration will consist entirely of people from the Eastside.”

Sotelo goes on to charge that Ceis and Jergens have set out, in her words, to “create a Boogeyman, stir dissension in city government and chaos in the surrounding communities.”

Republicans are not going to, again in Sotelo’s words, allow Ceis and Jergens to “tear at the fiber of Bellevue’s downtown core.” They are planning a counter demonstration at 5 p.m. in Bellevue Square.

While not as wrought up as Sotelo, the liberal PubliCola has produced a distinguished set of Eastside demons. Wrote Erica Barnett:

“The ‘education reform’ group Stand for Children, which supports U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s agenda for charter schools and tying student test scores to teacher evaluations, sent out a mailer this week supporting three Seattle School Board incumbents: Sherry Carr, Harium Martin-Morris and Steve Sundquist.

“Of the top five contributors to Stand for Children, who funded the Seattle School Board ad, only one couple — Jon and Judith Runstead — actually live in Seattle.”

She identified the Eastside interlopers as Ballmer and his wife Connie, and Mike and Jackie Bezos, parents of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos.

A second unsigned Publicola article identified Seattle School Board donors as living in “tony neighborhoods on the Eastside” and “many of them not even from Seattle.”

Ballmer was named again. Added to the rogues’ list was cellular phone executive John Stanton, described as a “Bellevue conservative donor.”

Ballmer is a tempting target for cross-water broadsides. He also owns a place on Whidbey Island.